God Opposes Pride

² Lift up a flag on the bare hill,
Raise your voice to them,
Wave the hand that they may enter the doors of the nobles.
³ I have commanded My consecrated ones,
I have also called for My warriors
Who boast in My eminence,
To execute My anger.
⁴ A sound of a roar on the mountains,
Like that of many people!
A sound of an uproar of kingdoms,
Of nations gathered together!
The Lord of armies is mustering the army for battle.
⁵ They are coming from a distant country,
From the farthest horizons,
The Lord and the weapons of His indignation,
To destroy the whole land.

⁶ Wail, for the day of the Lord is near!
It will come as destruction from the Almighty.
⁷ Therefore all hands will fall limp,
And every human heart will melt.
⁸ They will be terrified,
Pains and anguish will take hold of them;
They will writhe like a woman in labor,
They will look at one another in astonishment,
Their faces aflame.
⁹ Behold, the day of the Lord is coming,
Cruel, with fury and burning anger,
To make the land a desolation;
And He will exterminate its sinners from it.
¹⁰ For the stars of heaven and their constellations
Will not flash their light;
The sun will be dark when it rises
And the moon will not shed its light.
¹¹ So I will punish the world for its evil
And the wicked for their wrongdoing;
I will also put an end to the audacity of the proud
And humiliate the arrogance of the tyrants.
¹² I will make mortal man scarcer than pure gold
And mankind than the gold of Ophir.
¹³ Therefore I will make the heavens tremble,
And the earth will be shaken from its place
At the fury of the Lord of armies
In the day of His burning anger.
¹⁴ And it will be that, like a hunted gazelle,
Or like sheep with no one to gather them,
Each of them will turn to his own people,
And each of them will flee to his own land.
¹⁵ Anyone who is found will be thrust through,
And anyone who is captured will fall by the sword.
¹⁶ Their little ones also will be dashed to pieces
Before their eyes;
Their houses will be plundered
And their wives raped.

¹⁷ Behold, I am going to stir up the Medes against them,
Who will not value silver or take pleasure in gold.
¹⁸ And their bows will mow down the young men,
They will not even have compassion on the fruit of the womb,
Nor will their eye pity children.
¹⁹ And Babylon, the beauty of kingdoms, the glory of the Chaldeans’ pride,
Will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.
²⁰ It will never be inhabited or lived in from generation to generation;
Nor will the Arab pitch his tent there,
Nor will shepherds allow their flocks to lie down there.
²¹ But desert creatures will lie down there,
And their houses will be full of owls;
Ostriches also will live there, and shaggy goats will frolic there.
²² Hyenas will howl in their fortified towers
And jackals in their luxurious palaces.
Her fateful time also will soon come,
And her days will not be prolonged.

“How the oppressor has ceased,
And how the onslaught has ceased!
⁵ The Lord has broken the staff of the wicked,
The scepter of rulers,
⁶ Which used to strike the peoples in fury with unceasing strokes,
Which subdued the nations in anger with unrestrained persecution.
⁷ The whole earth is at rest and is quiet;
They break forth into shouts of joy.
⁸ Even the juniper trees rejoice over you, and the cedars of Lebanon, saying,
‘Since you have been laid low, no tree cutter comes up against us.’
⁹ Sheol below is excited about you, to meet you when you come;
It stirs the spirits of the dead for you, all the leaders of the earth;
It raises all the kings of the nations from their thrones.
¹⁰ They will all respond and say to you,
‘Even you have become weak as we,
You have become like us.
¹¹ Your pride and the music of your harps
Have been brought down to Sheol;
Maggots are spread out as your bed beneath you
And worms are your covering.’
¹² How you have fallen from heaven,
You star of the morning, son of the dawn!
You have been cut down to the earth,
You who defeated the nations!
¹³ But you said in your heart,
‘I will ascend to heaven;
I will raise my throne above the stars of God,
And I will sit on the mount of assembly
In the recesses of the north.
¹⁴ I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.’
¹⁵ Nevertheless you will be brought down to Sheol,
To the recesses of the pit.
¹⁶ Those who see you will stare at you,
They will closely examine you, saying,
‘Is this the man who made the earth tremble,
Who shook kingdoms,
¹⁷ Who made the world like a wilderness
And overthrew its cities,
Who did not allow his prisoners to go home?’
¹⁸ All the kings of the nations lie in glory,
Each in his own tomb.
¹⁹ But you have been hurled out of your tomb
Like a rejected branch,
Clothed with those killed who have been pierced with a sword,
Who go down to the stones of the pit
Like a trampled corpse.
²⁰ You will not be united with them in burial,
Because you have ruined your country,
You have killed your people.
May the descendants of evildoers never be mentioned.
²¹ Prepare a place of slaughter for his sons
Because of the wrongdoing of their fathers.
They must not arise and take possession of the earth,
And fill the surface of the world with cities.”